Immigration activists want MLB to move All-Star Game out of Arizona

by Kitty Felde

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This July, baseball’s All-Star Game will be played in Anaheim. Next year, it’s supposed to be played in Arizona. But immigration activists have other ideas.

At issue is the new Arizona immigration law that requires police to determine a person’s legal status.

Roberto Lovato, head of presente.org, started an online petition demanding that baseball commissioner Bud Selig move next year’s All-Star Game out of Arizona. He says he’s gathered more than a 100,000 signatures in just a week.

"We all love baseball," he says, "but we have no desire to be detained when we’re on the way to the game or harassed when we leave the game just because of how we look or how we talk."

Lovato and other activists say nearly a third of professional baseball players are Latino. They say the Angels encourage all their players — especially Latinos — to get California or Arizona ID’s. They’ve also given them three contact numbers for team officials.

An Angels spokesman says the numbers are in case players “have an issue” — like a PR question or an emergency — that might require help from team management.